8th September 2021

Breath, short and hot, comes out of the nostrils almost burning them. The Sun hits him in his eyes while he turnes to stand, the smell of the grass still filling his mouth.

Martin rests firmly his elbow on thhe lawn and lifts himself up, a couple of companions gather around him, they look more amused than worried.

-What a shook, Martin!- Riccardo exclaims, offering him his hand.

He appreciates that he at least calls him by his name: he's one of the few who still does it. The grip is anything but strong, almost hesitant, but it's enough to Martin to get back on his feet, ready to physically confront the perpetrator of the killer entrance, Diego, who beats him by half a head in height, and by at least fifteen kilos in weight, felt very well a few moments before, on the occasion of the foul he has just committed, withouut many qualms.

-Can you stop opponents even without a red card?- Martin asks him.

The heads are getting closer and closer. They can look at every single stread of hair soaked in hot sweapt, waving before their darting eyes. Diego smiles ironically.

-I don't see any cards, Samba.-

-I don't see football, when I watch you play.-

-Boom.- riccardo murmurs, amused by that so heated exchange. Then Riad joins the group, with a grin that's just like Diego's.

-Move your ass, Samba. Otherwise the coach will smash it for everyone with repeated repetitions.- he oreders him, moving on with a shoulder-barge.

Martin shooks his head, pulls down his sock and observes the slightly sore ankle, fortunately protected by the shin guard. Nothing serious compared to what he suffered a few days earlier on the other ankle. Since that day, wearing shin guards has become an obligation for him.

To everyone, he is samba, beacuse of his Brazilian origins on the mother's side and beacause of that silly video that right his mother has published not before fifteen days before where she dances samba with him to a relative's birthday party.

And thinking that he's even pretty good at dancing, flowing, so much that many of the guests were surprised at how well he managed despite being an "half-blood", half Brazilian and half Italian. At the time he had even been proud of it: he really liked the idea of doing so well the thing that tied him to one of his two counties of origin.

And the other thing was, obviously, the football. That sport for which every family's men, both Italians and South Americans doted on, and that has finally found a a clot of talent in him, lean but with fibre, thoughtful but quick. And almost too delicate on the playgruond, where he walks around with his strange brown curls that frame a face with a vaguely nostalgic expression.

"It must be the saudade" his mother says every now and then, smiling with an expression that resembles Martin's a bit.

But here is centainly no time to think about saudade, while the coach with a dry and unapealable whistle orders the game to resume as soon as possible, because the campionship is approaching and they are apparently very, very behind the schedule.

Yet the boys are committing and sweating from the beginning of thhe preparation, under the Sun not really different from the August one. There are twenty-four of them, and none of them wanna give up, because the opportunity they had comes rarely, in these places.

In the previous months, the local sport club has found a new rather large sponsor, something of a national level, and the first thing it did was search an agreement with a team not far away, merging and aquiring its sports title. Result? A football team that until yesterday it was sailing on the fringes of the sixth football series, and now it even aims to become a professional structure.

And them, the boys from the two juniores merged itnto one team, are fighting to stay in this project and not be cast aside like shoes that are too small, despite their eighteen years. This is why their training is so intense, this is why every gesture is pushed to the poin of exhasperation, this is why they sweat and work hard to appear as aggressive, ready, "performing" as possible.

This is supposed to be true for Martin too, he should spit blood, hearing what a lot of his teamates say. Of course, the fatigue is a part of the play, as the sweat drop running down is temple reminds him, but Martin isn't willing to spit anything: he has other skills, on which he keeps working encouraged by everyone around him.

A rebellious curl is fixed with a puff of the mouth, he takes four steps backwards, then starts and draws a perfect arc with the ball, which ends up in the top corner of the goal, almost thirty metres away, between the astonished look of the goalkeeper and the admiring one of Riccardo, the "reserve" free kick taker. Martin barely smiles at the splendid technical gesture, amidst the curses of his opponents interspersed with a few "How fucking lucky are you?!"

After something like that, the match becomes something irrelevant, the players face each other from a distance, without going into deep disputes. Martin dramatically concretized the phrase "free kick". So the coach whistles two minutes before the scheduled time of that tour de force. And sends them to the shower.

The boys, panting and soaked with sweat, trot toward the canghing rooms, filling the air with complaints of tiredness and curses without a real reason. They take off their soaked shirts, someone even before entring, and they throw them on the floor with a tired but liberating gesture, revealing the bodies still tense from fatigue. The muscles of the shoulders and abdominals contract with every movement, marked by a golden light that filters through the frosted windows.

The complaints leave space to the laughters, they grow as the showers come on with a powerful roar. The boys, at that point naked, move with the naturalness of who every day shares those spaces so soaked with their fatigue, exchanging jokes amidst the jets of hot water. Others take the time to scroll through notifications on their cell phones: what happened to their peers who still enjoy the sea. They linger on the laughing girls in costume, with the rest of their bodies moving in an exciting dance.

You can hear the snap of a towel being hit playfully, a curse said at the top of their voice, more for fun than for pain, and the rhythmic sound of hands rubbing away sweat and dirt. The bodies, still full of energy despite the fatigue, are alive, real, full of a youth which they may not fully realize.

Martin, at one end of the bench, calmly takes off all his clothing. He sill has to get used to that situation, to that team where he came back ofter two years of sbsence, to a new coach, to a lot of new teammates, to those spaces that, after two years of Academy, seem more like a chicken coop than a changing room, very different from the well-kept and much tidier places, where the invasion of privacy was not so total.

He sighs, takes off his T-shirt, his shorts, his elastic briefs completely soaked with sweat. He grabs some shower gel and shampoo and heads for the showers. Or rather, for that completely open space where eight siphons erupt, four on each side.

By now almost everyone has finished, and have returned to the benches to dry off, get dressed, and look at their cell phones again. Francesco is smiling with a half-stupid look directed at the screen, and in the meantime, perhaps without even realizing it, he is touching the fabric of his boxers stretched by his now semi-rigid member, surely due to a video or a photo, among the many that are circulating. Martin looks away and meets Riccardo, still in the shower, who gives him an admiring glance.

-Bro, what kind of free kicks do you take?! I swear, you look like CR7 prime!-

-But maybe.- Martin sighs, carefully soaping his tanned chest and thighs.

-Are you coming to eat some junk food down at the Full Moon?- Riccardo continues.

-Nah, I'll go back to base, maybe I'll see the girl.-

-Tonight she's getting fucked.- the teammate chuckles.

-Oh Samba! When are you going to let us fuck her too?- Riad shouts from around the corner. -I'll make her taste all the mutton of the Maghreb.-

The laughter is a bit forced, but Martin replies anyway.

-Try it, but you can't beat picanha.-

The problem with a joke like that is that it's too subtle for a locker room of average Italian eighteen-year-olds, and in the end the hilarity drops by a couple more points. He hears Riad asking in a very low voice to someone "But what the fuck is piccana?", then the locker room empties of guys in slippers, socks and shoulder bags, whose trails of perfume and deodorant cross and merge.

Martin comes out calmly last, there is still Riad playing Brawl Stars on his cell phone and, without even looking at him, he passes him the bathrobe.

-Here Samba, I wanted to hide it from you but I changed my mind. A godly free kick, I admit it.- and he doesn't have time to finish the sentence before he leaves.

The other one stays with the robe in his hand for a moment, then he drops onto the bench and dries his hair with a lazy gesture. He remains for a moment with his gaze in the void. He can still hear the water in his ears and Riad's voice in his head, which for once wasn't ironic.

Martin: Hey Meg, hi. I finished here.

Shall we meet?